


Food, Glorious Food

by crutchie_394



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Canon Era, Gen, Light Angst, Starvation, they're dumb but i promise they're fine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 05:10:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18025307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crutchie_394/pseuds/crutchie_394
Summary: “Hey, Jackie!” Race shouted, climbing out on the fire escape. He rattled the metal ladder as hard as he could. “Up and at ‘em!”Race waited a few seconds, then when he didn’t hear Jack whining from the roof, he grabbed the ladder again and started climbing. “Jack!”When he reached the edge of the roof, he found Jack sitting up on his bedroll. His eyes were drooping and his hat was pulled over his face. Race hoisted himself up, walked over, and shook his shoulder. Jack’s head snapped up.~~~There's something off with Jack, and Race has a sinking feeling it has to do with him.





	Food, Glorious Food

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dyingpoet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dyingpoet/gifts).



> hey guys i'm back!!
> 
> i know i have some wips i still need to update but i pretended they didn't exist so i could write this
> 
> love u all, enjoy 
> 
> trigger warning: hunger, small mentions of death

Race poked his head out the window, breathing in the air of the early morning. He didn’t know why, but he had a feeling it would be a good day. Maybe it was because he hadn’t woken up to the sound of Jack clanging around the roof or a pair of suspenders being thrown at his face.

In fact, he hadn’t heard a word from Jack since the morning bell rang. Crutchie had come down a while ago, leaning on his crutch with his usual grin, but with no Jack in sight. 

“Hey, Jackie!” Race shouted, climbing out on the fire escape. He rattled the metal ladder as hard as he could. “Up and at ‘em!”

Race waited a few seconds, then when he didn’t hear Jack whining from the roof, he grabbed the ladder again and started climbing. “Jack!”

When he reached the edge of the roof, he found Jack sitting up on his bedroll. His eyes were drooping and his hat was pulled over his face. Race hoisted himself up, walked over, and shook his shoulder. Jack’s head snapped up.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m up,” he grumbled, adjusting his hat. “Quit whinin’. I’ve been up for,” he interrupted himself with a yawn, “hours.”

Race rolled his eyes. “Well, ya sure don’t look the part. You doin’ okay, Jackie? You’re usually the first one up.”

“I’m fine, kid. Don’t think on it.” Jack yawned again and stumbled to his feet. It was almost as if he was using Race’s shoulder to stay upright. “Let’s get to sellin’, yeah?”

Race nodded slowly. “Yeah. Let’s get to it.”

* * *

At the selling gate, Race didn’t say anything about letting Jack lean into his side. When the nuns finally showed up with stale rolls and coffee, Race separated from him to grab rations for the little kids.

“Here ya go, guys,” he said, ruffling a kid’s hair as he passed the bread around. He’d discreetly handed his own roll off to Elmer. He could go without breakfast for another day, it wouldn’t kill him.

Then, as he stood up and stretched his arms above his head, Jack materialized at his side. He shoved a bread roll and a cup of coffee into Race’s hands.

“The nuns had some extra this mornin’,” he said. “Eat up, kid.”

“Didn’t they have extra yesterday, too?” Race said, glancing around for a second before biting into the roll. 

“Yeah, guess so,” Jack said. The nuns came around to collect their empty cups just as Morris and Oscar opened the gates. Race wolfed down the rest of the roll and licked his fingers, smiling at Jack before turning to the Delanceys to do his usual griping. Jack had an arm around his shoulders, gripping at the fabric of his vest. He was a tactile guy, and Race wasn’t worried. He was fine. Jack was _ fine. _

* * *

Jack wasn’t fine.

For once, Race had decided to stay in Manhattan to sell. Whether that was because he was worried about Jack or because he had a couple guys in Brooklyn that wanted to punch him in the face, he couldn’t say, but either way it kept him on the same street as Jack for most of the day. 

Around noon, Jack wandered over to Race’s spot. He looked half-dazed, like his eyes were focusing on a spot in the distance. 

“Wanna go get some lunch?” he said, snatching the coins from Race’s hands to count them. 

“Oh, uh, no, I’ll pass,” Race said. “You goin’ down to Jacobi’s?”

Jack frowned, grabbing Race’s paper bag to drag him forward. “Not if you’re not comin’ with,” he whined. “C’mon, you’ve got half a dozen papes left. You’ll be fine.”

Race rolled his eyes, grabbing his coins back. “I don’t got the money. I gotta pay lodgin’ fees for the last couple days -”

“I’ll cover ya,” Jack said automatically. “I got some to spare.”

Race wouldn’t say he _ agreed _ to get lunch, but somehow he found himself standing outside Jacobi’s, waiting for Jack to come out with a couple sandwiches. He wouldn’t ever admit it, but his stomach was growling a little. He could pay Jack back later.

The bell above the door chimed, and Jack stepped out with some food wrapped in paper. “Voila,” he said, presenting it with a low bow. “Anything else I can do for you, your Highness?”

“Shuddup,” Race said. Unwrapping the paper, he pulled out half a sandwich on stale bread. He started breaking it in half when Jack shook his head and swatted his hand. 

“Hey, none’a that,” he said. “You take it. I had my half while I was waitin’ for Jacobi to wrap it up.”

Race peered at him, taking note of the bags under Jack’s eyes. They were darker than they usually were in contrast to Jack’s pale, sunken face. “...You sure?”

Jack closed his eyes when he nodded, like he just needed a few seconds of rest he hadn’t gotten the night before. Except Crutchie had said he was still out like a light when the morning bell rang, so that didn’t make sense. “Yeah.”

Race kept looking at him, the sandwich still in his hands. He couldn’t shake a certain thought out of his head, and as much as he hated it, it was the only thing other than pure illness he could think of. 

He  _ knew _ what it was like to be hungry. He knew what it was like to try and sell with an empty stomach, and he knew what it was like to be living off the energy of an apple from three days ago. The longest he’d ever gone without eating was four days. Looking at the way Jack’s clothes were hanging off his frame more than normal, Race started wondering how long he’d ever gone. 

He looked down at the sandwich, turning it over in his hands. “...The nuns didn’t have extra bread this mornin’, did they?”

He could  _ hear  _ Jack go still. “What’re you on about? ‘Course they did. I think a kid didn’t show up or somethin’. Eat the damn sandwich an-”

Race shook his head, taking a step back and slowly letting his face morph into a glare. “Don’t lie to me, Jackie. I ain’t a little kid. Just… you ain’t been eating, have you?”

Jack was shaking his head, but the dots were connecting in Race’s head and it felt so  _ obvious  _ that he felt like hitting himself. Jack had handed him a sausage and a loaf of bread last night when Race had already given his rations to Romeo. He’d found an apple and some cheese sitting under his bed two days ago. The bread roll and the cup of coffee, the sandwich... he was such an idiot. _ Jack _ was an idiot.  
  
“You’ve been givin’ up your food for me.”

Jack sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “Racer -”

“Kelly, that ain’t fair! You’re always on my ass about not eatin’, then you turn around and do the same thing! I know you think you’ve gotta save all the damn strays, but starvin’ yourself ain’t gonna fuckin’ help anything!”

“I don’t know what else I can do!” Jack shouted, throwing his hands out. He was breathing heavily, either from adrenaline or lack of energy. “Race, I can only help one kid at a time. And if that means makin’ sure you ain’t gonna die this winter, it’s gotta be like that. When was the last time you took food without handin’ some of it out to the kids?” Race stayed silent. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“Well,” Race sputtered, “it ain’t gettin’ us nowhere else when you’re the one missin’ meals. They need you more than me, Jack.”

“That’s  _ so far _ from the damn truth, I’m gonna -”

“You’re gonna what?” Race said vigorously, stepping forward until their faces were six inches apart. “You’re killin’ yourself, Kelly. There ain’t much you can do to me when you can’t stand on two feet.”

“Race, I-!” Jack suddenly stopped, taking a deep breath as if he needed a minute to collect the thoughts tripping over themselves to get out of his head. “I  _ know.  _ I damn well know that. I know what it’s like to be hungry. The Refuge knocked it in my head pretty good. But you just look so much… happier. You’re actually smiling when your face ain’t pale and lookin’ like you escaped death’s door. If it can’t be me buggin’ the shit out of everyone at sunrise, I want it to be you.”

Race half-smiled. “As much as I appreciate you thinkin’ my mug ain’t half bad,” he said, “the guys need your obnoxious shit almost as much as they need mine. Crutchie’s gonna beat the shit out of me if he finds out I’m the reason you look like you crawled your way up from hell every day.”

“‘Obnoxious’, really? Spendin’ too much time with Davey, huh?”

Race snorted. “Yeah, I’m the one spendin’ quality time with him, sure.” Jack went a little red in the face, and Race spared him some embarrassment by looking down at the sandwich balled up in his hands. It was a little squished, but still good. He broke it in half and waved it in Jack’s face. “Start eatin’, Cowboy,” he said. “They don’t take kids lookin’ as sick as you in the wild west.”

**Author's Note:**

> let those boys eat!!
> 
> check me out on bumblr @well-the-kids-do-too and also go read everything of olivia's, @dying-poet on bumblr and dyingpoet on ao3
> 
> okay that's all, thanks for reading, please leave some comments, thank u bye!


End file.
